Generally, a healthy person at ordinary time may not recognize his constitutionally weak point because he feels little physical pain during his illness. However, someone having a weak bronchus may always catch cold and have a chronic cough. Also, someone having a weak stomach may suffer from indigestion frequently. On the other hand, someone is said to have a stomach like a melting furnace because he has very strong stomach. There are many people complaining of various symptoms such as a frequent evacuation caused by weak viscera and a frequent swelling caused by poor urination.
These people may self-diagnose themselves as having a weak bronchial constitution, a weak stomachic constitution, a weak visceral constitution, or a weak renal constitution. Thus, the reason why people complain of physical pains different from each other is that each person is born with his own constitution of visceral (the five viscera and the six entrails) functions different from others inherently.
The constitution of a man also affects the form of his face or his figure. Accordingly, the people having the same constitution have common features in their faces and figures.
The features of each sasang constitution (Tae-yangin, Tae-eumin, So-yangin and So-eumin in sasang constitutional medicine theorized by Lee, Je-ma) observed through various literatures (reference literatures: donguisusebowon, bojeyeonseol, keumkyebibang, sasangbyun, sasangyeonui, sasangbangyakhabpyun, sasangjinryobowon, sasangyogeol, yeonbyun sasang constitutional medicine, etc.) and clinical experiments will be described as follows.
Tae-yangin has a clear face style, a big head, a broad forehead, thick eyebrows, big ears and a high-bridged nose.
So-yangin has a small and round head, a narrow and sharp chin, tiny earlobes, a thin lip, and a small mouth.
Tae-eumin has a wide and flat face, a wide chin, a wide forehead, thick ears, and a big and dull nose, and a thick lip.
So-eumin has an oval face which is some long compared to body, a narrow and protruded forehead, short width brows, tiny eyes, big earlobes, a hollow ear like a bowl, a small nose, a big and protruded mouth.
Accordingly, the sasang constitution of a subject may be determined by features of the face according to each sasang constitution.
However, when an Oriental doctor diagnoses a patient based on these features, his subjective opinion may be intervened into the diagnosis result. Also, as scientific technologies develop, it has been necessary to remotely diagnose symptoms of an illness using only image information.
For this, it may be important to obtain and transmit the image information without any noise. However, in order to diagnose the condition of a patient using the image, it is more important to analyze and transform the image so that various images photographed at different time and place may have a similar effect with images photographed at the same time and condition.
When the image information is obtained through a camera, the color of the image may be varied in accordance with location and properties of a light source. For example, when the image is obtained using the light source located at a relatively higher place, the color of the lower half part or the upper half part of the face is different from the color of the actual subject.
Use of a frontal image of the subject having the color distortion in a diagnosis may result in a wrong diagnosis. Accordingly, in order to reduce an affect by the light source, the subject is required to be photographed by special lighting equipments in a closed room. However, this may cause inconvenience to the subject etc.
For a image diagnosis, there may be a need to correct color change and geometric information distorted at the time of photographing. For example, the form of the subject may be changed due to a vibration of the camera by a hand tremor. It is very difficult to correct the geometric information distortion because the shape of the human body is not linear but three-dimensional.
In order to synthesize a three-dimensional model using a two-dimensional image, two or more images having the same color reference are necessary. However, a difference between the color references of the images makes it difficult to synthesize the three-dimensional model.
Also, two or more two-dimensional images are necessary to make a three-dimensional model. However, the plurality of flat images may have different colors according to the photographing condition such as a time, a place, an illumination etc. If the equal parts have different colors, there is a possibility to misjudge presence/absence of abnormality due to inconsistent colors of the three-dimensional model. Also, when the irregular contour of the face of the actual subject is not taken into account, it is difficult to show an exact three-dimensional color. This may result in a wrong diagnosis.
As a related art technology, there are an image contrast system and method using a three-dimensional object model, and a computer readable storage medium recorded with a image contrast program (Korean Patent Publication No. 2005-0017117 published Feb. 21, 2005), which discloses a method of high-speed retrieving a reference image stored at database from an input image with respect to an object photographed under condition of different postures and illuminations. The above invention does compare not a three-dimensional model but a reference image of the three-dimensional model, i.e., the two-dimensional image. Accordingly, it is impossible to determine the sasang constitution which is characterized by the three-dimensional face structure.
Other related art technologies relevant to an image recognition and analysis will be described below.
First, a form recognition apparatus and a method thereof (Korean Patent Publication No. 2006-0119968 published Nov. 24, 2006. 11. 24) discloses an apparatus and a method of recognizing a face by capturing an image. However, the image may be distorted by an illumination or other circumferential environments because there is no configuration about a correction of the image.
Next, the photographing system (Japanese Patent Publication 2003-209849 published Jul. 25, 2003) discloses a method of correcting a color channel from a reference image by install a reflecting plane at the lower part of a cap which opens and closes a lens. Although sensitive to changes of colors, this method has a limitation in that it is difficult to correct the color channel by reflecting a condition of a light projected to an actual object.
Next, a face image indication method and a face image processing unit (Japanese Patent Publication 2002-010283 published Jan. 11, 2002) is configured to correct the face image using an illuminance correction factor calculated from RGB values of a color table image, which is outputted from a camera to a computer. However, this method has a limitation in that it is difficult to solve a plurality of partial color distortions which may occur in a photographed image because a whole image is in a lump corrected in accordance with the illuminance.